While Swiss Have Shelters, Israel Preps for Nuke Attack Much Like U.S.

While Swiss Have Shelters, Israel Preps for Nuke Attack Much Like U.S.

Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com
Saturday, June 22, 2002

This is part four in a series on the nuclear terror threat. See part one: Experts Sum Up Their Fears of Nuke Attack. Part two: Dirty Nukes: Fear as a Weapon. Part three: Are We Prepared to Prevent, React to a Nuke Attack?

As the U.S. faces down the volatile "axis of evil” and Israel occupies a perennial ground zero for potential incoming nuclear missiles from Iran or Iraq, little neutral Switzerland leads the way in traditional civil defense.

Thousands of fallout shelters continue to be built in Switzerland, where the law of the land requires that every structure have space below ground for the number of people that occupy the building above.

"People might find it laughable that we built such rooms, but if we are ever under threat then we will be heroes to our people,” said Kurt Grimm of the Swiss Civic Protection Authority.

Last year in the wake of Sept. 11, the Swiss government conducted nationwide mock disaster exercises to test how its civil defense system would cope with a simulated nuclear event that contaminated a wide area of the country and forced millions of people into bomb shelters.

"The shelters were designed for all kinds of incidents, such as nuclear or chemical accidents, not just war,” explained Juerg Balmer, also of the Civil Protection office.

Israel’s Miserly Nuke Civil Defense

Meanwhile, back in embattled Israel, this past year the cabinet allocated all of $110 million for preparations against not only nuclear, but chemical and biological attacks as well.

Also last year, in a move foreshadowing President Bush’s quest to consolidate home security duties in a new department, the Israeli cabinet singled out the office of the defense minister as overseer of the attack preparations. Previously, responsibility for domestic security was divided among the defense, public security and interior ministries.

The relatively minuscule attack preparations budget is earmarked for, among other staples: protective equipment for rescue troops, mobile (body) identification units, and medical stores.

When Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was last asked whether Israel was ready to protect its citizens against a nuclear attack by Iran, Sharon had no ready answer.

At least part of Sharon’s discomfiture must be owing to the sad state of the shelters in his country.

Oops

Three months ago, a Jerusalem high school showed off to the city’s mayor how efficiently the 550 pupils at the neighborhood school could move into a shelter if attacked. One key problem, however: The shelter at the ORT-Spanian school had room to accommodate only 200 pupils.

Recently, the Union of Local Authorities in Israel released a report indicating that 47 percent of the country’s high schools and 44 percent of the secondary schools lack bomb shelter space for the students and staff.

Also in the report: 18 percent of the country’s high schools and 24 percent of middle schools have no shelters whatever. Of those that do, only 35 percent of the high schools and 32 percent of the middle schools have shelters rated adequate.

The Union estimates the country lacks 295,000 square meters of bomb shelter space – the shortage owing simply to a lack of funds. Adding to the dilemma, the shelters that do exist are not necessarily appropriate as sustained protection from insidious nuclear fallout.

Relying on the Military

Like the U.S., which by the way features no fallout shelters for its non-congressional citizens, Israel looks to its military prowess and technological edge to hopefully keep the populace from having to dash to shelters in the first place.

Of course the paramount example of the Israel defensive formula is the June 1981 precision bombing of Iraq’s reactor – at the time poised to produce fuel for a nuclear bomb. In a daring, nearly impossible raid, Israeli jets knocked out the target, knocking Sadaam back at least a decade in his mad scramble for The Bomb.

Most impressive was the range to the target: about 560 miles, most of it over hostile Arab territory. In those days the U.S.-made F-16 had a combat radius of about 575 miles, giving the Israeli pilots little margin for error.

These days it’s déjà vu for Israel, except that the rogue nation most dangerously playing with nuclear fire is Iran rather than Iraq.

Last year former U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, always a big fan of the 1981 Israeli pre-emptive raid against Iraq, was warning Iran to expect a duplicate Israeli surgical strike against its nuclear reactor if Tehran pursued its reported quest for nuclear arms.

Such ominous saber rattling has not gone unnoticed in Iran.

"If Israel carries out any military action against Iran, it will face a response that will be unimaginable to any Israeli politician,” Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani announced in February. Although denying that any retaliation would be nuclear, he reminded Israel and its American ally:

"Iran is not a small country like Iraq. Iran has a powerful artillery, a disciplined army, and skilled air defenses,” Shamkhani said.

Jane’s Intelligence Review has gone on record writing: "[Israel] will almost certainly launch a preemptive attack on the Iranian nuclear and research and development infrastructure before it can generate enough weapons-grade material to make ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.”

Jane’s added that Israel would more than likely get covert support for the raid from the U.S.

Beyond the Preemptory Strike: Deterrence

In addition to its manifest willingness to strike first and parley second, Israel has another key defensive tool in its arsenal.

Israel’s launch in late May of its new "Ofec-5” military imaging reconnaissance satellite ramped up its ability to unilaterally detect missile threats originating in Syria, Iran and Iraq.

Israeli army Maj. Gen. Yitzhak Ben-Yisrael said space vehicles such as Ofec-5 are of "utmost importance" to Israel for obtaining ballistic missile intelligence.

The launch of the spy satellite was not kept as a state secret because Israel wants its belligerent neighbors to know that by using its own space reconnaissance, it can retaliate for any detected mischief by launching a flurry of nuclear-capable Jericho II ballistic missiles - before incoming rockets even engage their targets.

About a week before Israel deployed its new eye-in-the-sky, Iran test launched a 900-mile-range "Shahab-3” ballistic missile, fully capable of hitting Israel with a nuclear, chemical or biological weapon.

Meanwhile, stuck with an overabundance of shelters dating from the Cold War, the Swiss still build and refurbish their survival holes.

With the relative quiet that has followed 9-11, a few Swiss are gaining back confidence or perhaps a sense of humor. Some of the more affluent seek a dual purpose for their mandatory shelters. Wine cellars and artists’ studios are popular projects to modify the nation’s 261,418 private shelters.

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